Homeland Security Request to Take Down MafiaaFire Add-on

From time to time, we receive government requests for information, usually market information and occasionally subpoenas. Recently the US Department of Homeland Security contacted Mozilla and requested that we remove the MafiaaFire add-on. The ICE Homeland Security Investigations unit alleged that the add-on circumvented a seizure order DHS had obtained against a number of domain names. Mafiaafire, like several other similar add-ons already available through AMO, redirects the user from one domain name to another similar to a mail forwarding service. In this case, Mafiaafire redirects traffic from seized domains to other domains. Here the seized domain names allegedly were used to stream content protected by copyrights of professional sports franchises and other media concerns.

Our approach is to comply with valid court orders, warrants, and legal mandates, but in this case there was no such court order. Thus, to evaluate Homeland Security’s request, we asked them several questions similar to those below to understand the legal justification:

Have any courts determined that the Mafiaafire add-on is unlawful or illegal in any way? If so, on what basis? (Please provide any relevant rulings)

Is Mozilla legally obligated to disable the add-on or is this request based on other reasons? If other reasons, can you please specify.

Can you please provide a copy of the relevant seizure order upon which your request to Mozilla to take down the Mafiaafire add-on is based?

To date we’ve received no response from Homeland Security nor any court order.

One of the fundamental issues here is under what conditions do intermediaries accede to government requests that have a censorship effect and which may threaten the open Internet. Others have commented on these practices already. In this case, the underlying justification arises from content holders legitimate desire to combat piracy. The problem stems from the use of these government powers in service of private content holders when it can have unintended and harmful consequences. Longterm, the challenge is to find better mechanisms that provide both real due process and transparency without infringing upon developer and user freedoms traditionally associated with the Internet. More to come.

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Excellent do; demand proof of authority, delegation of authority, and the law, rule, regulation, or contract that WhoeverX is seeking to invoke and assert against you.

As a court once wrote, (paraphrase) `mere assumption of power or authority is no longer good enough’ — demand proof.

Their mission seems to be control. Google them…. The government is already demanding twitter release all information, not some ALL, information on anyone who followed wiki leaks. DHS/ICE has ‘accidentally’ shut down hundreds of incorrect websites. AT&T/NSA were already caught spying on us(you and I). There are many examples. I do not know about you. But, I am not a criminal or a terrorist. Therefore I assumed I have constitutional rights. It seems the government disagrees. Pass this page on.

you cant hand the government a tool as powerful as the patriot act and associated agencies and expect them to not abuse it. And since the government is run by people owned more or less by corporations, that means they get to play with the new toys too.

I think the most important issue here is that they did not issue a court order requiring to comply. Not only are you not required to comply, but, to be a good corporate citizen, you shouldn’t comply except in extreme circumstances. This should really be a standard part of corporate ethics training.

On a different topic – why is the Department of Homeland Security involved in copyright and intellectual property enforcement? That’s not a national security issue, it’s a law enforcement issue (for non-violent crimes at that).

Very awesome. Mozilla please keep it up! don’t roll over to a tyrannical government!

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

Hi,
I am one of the dev’s from MAFIAAFire, I would just like to say “Thank You” from the bottom of our hearts.

We were not sure if Mozilla would keep our plugin when we started, and to date our plugin has not been reviewed to be “officially accepted” so we were always doubtful… but to actually stand up for us… blows us away!

It’s good to see someone as big as Mozilla actually walks the walk after talking the talk and it’s _not_ all just a PR stunt.

The plugin has been open sourced (as well as the Chrome version) on our site, and we look forward to officially being accepted on the add on site.

A number of people here are asking why the Department of Homeland Security is involved. I think that’s a question well-worth asking. Now, I can understand the FBI being involved if provable losses get high enough – that is, after all, their job. Even then, there’s some fairly exacting standards. Civil matters are normally left to the individuals concerned unless you’re in the realms of grand theft or there’s an interstate law involved. The DHS does have a cybersecurity division, which is presumably the group involved, but all it is is a glorified CERT. That they do not appear to refer to or use any guides from the Systems and Network Analysis Center Information Assurance Directorate (aka the NSA) convinces me they’re neither serious not knowledgeable in issues dealing with information security. Which is perhaps why they’re chasing copyright infringers instead.

ICE(Immigration and Customs Enforcement) is the organization that seized the domains that the Mafiaafire add-on providing a way to connect to. ICE is part of the DHS. They investigate and enforce a number of things dealing with the internet and international commerce. One of their responsibilities deals with copyright infringement.

It does’t make any sense ICE(Immigration and Customs Enforcement) should be dealing with copyright issiues an they should’t have the right to sieze a domain period. The internet is a global domain thet doesn’t belong to any country so siezeing a domain is clearly a abuse of power. The most they should be able to do is ban it in the US.
If the US has the right to sieze a domain then China should have the right too so how would you like China decideing wich domains live and wich die?How about the rest of the countries don’t they have the same rights too? I’m begining to think Zeitgeist is’t all that far from the truth afterall.

Its time we get rid of these agencies. These people are nazi’s. what in the hell does pirated software have the hell to do with protecting this country? Please someone tell me? NOTHING..! NOT A DAMN THING! Damn it I gave 20+ years of my life so assholes at these agencies could do this crap? BS! Damn it gets my blood boiling to see that we are now the new nazi germany with these ss freaks running the show. We need to vote these lame duck politicans out of office. Please please get together and start voting any asshole out that isn’t going to do away with ice, homeland security and tsa.

Don’t be an idiot, Bob. By comparing someone with the nazis, the person you make look bad is yourself. The nazis killed millions of innocent people. What happens here is not ok, but it’s more than one magnitude away from the 3rd reich, so please don’t be ridiculous. You’re not helping with comments like this, because you add to the impression, that people who don’t like the whole thing are all loonies. It’s stupid exaggerations like this one that make the western world look bad. In other countries, people are shot because they say what they think, but the US are becoming the next 3rd reich, because of some domain seizures? Get real.

Hmmm, yes. Bob is mixing up Nazis and fascists, a mistake often made. The Nazis were fascists, as was Mussolini’s Italy and Franco’s Spain. And Chili under Pinochet, etc etc. According to Mussolini, head of state of the original fascist country, a fascist regime is a regime were the corporate and state power are merging. Well, that sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

Your knee-jerk reaction to the use of the term Nazi shows your ignorance. Yes the Nazi’s did kill millions of innocent people. But they also harassed and imprisoned millions more in the decade before Pearl Harbor. The Nationalist Socialist party was only able to take power of pre-war Germany by using thugs and “jack booted” enforcers that used fear and iron fisted tactics to control the population.

The current regime is most definitely using unconstitutional and unlawful tactics to intimidate the general populace. We are protected against search and seizure without a warrant signed by a judge that specifies in detail who-by name, where and exactly what the crime being accused is. Without a warrant any search or seizure is a violation of the constitution and the law.

Be very careful when you defend the government’s taking of property and liberty, yours could be next.

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F the DHS 😛
what right do they have to ask them to take anything down
& even if they do get it removed its just going to be shared over torrent & file dump sites.
way to go DHS you really put a stop it, NOT! LOL

I hope that people will show a little responsibility while on the internet. I can’t help but think how people that are violating copyrights are giving the government more reason to attempt more control over the internet. This is how it starts. Obama has a tough team on board to work on bringing Internet ID. So far they say it will be voluntary. That is how they operate, first it is voluntary, then it becomes mandatory. Governments are just waiting a looking for excuses to gain control.

It’s the government’s job to uphold and enforce the law, including copyright law; but something as serious as closing down a business or taking down a website should not happen on a mere telephone call: this is the whole point of Mozilla’s reaction.

It sounds significant to me that once Mozilla asked about details of a court order, no answer has been forthcoming.

I do not understand? What does shutting down websites have to do with terrorism? Especially the type of websites DHS/ICE has taken down? This seems to be a serious & disgusting overstepping of boundaries? There are departments the government already has in place to shut down websites and private sector companies. It is as if we are moving towards a single government entity with power over everything whenever they want to do it for whatever reason.

Doesn’t anyone else feel this way? We know the NSA has teamed with At&T to spy on us. We know hundreds of incorrect websites have been shut down by DHS already. We are not immigrants or terrorists. We know the government has demanded twitter turn over all the names of anyone who followed twitter – Regardless if they were violating laws. This is not China. We are not terrorists or criminals. Yet….

Yet…. This is how they treat us. Like terrorists & criminals.. Is what I meant. Not that we will be driven to be terrorists. However, nations who have treated their people as criminals or terrorists without due process of law… Those citizens are viewed as terrorists by the state. Take it how you want? But, I said what I meant.

The DHS should not be getting involved with such activities. The ICE should have functions relating to copyright protection returned to the government agencies which previously carried out those functions. The reason for this is simple: if the DHS is to do its job properly, it needs to focus on its core function, which is to provide the USA with security from terrorism and similar acts.
The DHS has a mandate to act swiftly, however, by including functions which rightly require court orders, they get confused and end up demanding illegal compliance. make it easier on them – remove all the functions, agencies and excessive personnel they shouldn’t have and let them focus on what they should be doing.